Dialogue with a University Teacher – Part 2

We discussed Hanban’s International Curriculum for Chinese Language Education，the CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) approach， teaching Chinese characters and using the student’s mother tongue in the classroom.

In 2007, Hanban’s Curriculum was developed with regards teaching Chinese abroad. The learning environment, and aims, of those abroad is inevitably different to those studying in China. So the Curriculum has been adapted by Chinese universities, and combined with local culture, with regards teaching foreign learners based in China.

University Teacher 1 had learnt about CLT back in the late 90’s, and, through co-operation with an American teacher, integrated CLT techniques in her classroom. Not only was this approach successful with teaching the Chinese language, but it also worked well for teaching Chinese characters. As there is currently no explicit training in this field, she suggests teachers inform themselves of such techniques.

Uni Teacher 1 feels that as Chinese characters is a part of every day life in China, so should it be for the serious learner of the language.

Finally, she usually avoids the use of the student’s mother tongue in her classroom, except when teaching beginner student’s the basics of the langauge.